1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a process for producing embroidery data to control a sewing machine to form an embroidery on a work sheet, and an embroidering product having an embroidery.
2. Related Art Statement
There is known an embroidery sewing machine which automatically forms an embroidery on a work sheet such as a work cloth while simultaneously moving the work sheet relative to a sewing needle. Embroidery data are utilized to control the sewing machine to form the embroidery. The embroidery data include, e.g., sets of stitch-position data representative of respective stitch positions on the outline of a closed area to be filled with the stitches to provide the embroidery, i.e., each stitch position corresponding to amounts of movement of the work sheet relative to the sewing needle in the X and Y directions pre-determined for the sewing machine. Embroidery data may otherwise include sets of block data representative of respective outlines of blocks as divisions of a closed area. U.S. Pat. No. 5,189,623 assigned to the Assignee of the present application discloses an embroidery data producing apparatus which automatically produces such embroidery data.
The above data producing apparatus may be constituted by (a) a personal computer (PC), (b) an image scanner, (c) a keyboard, (d) a hard disk drive (HDD), and (e) a cathode ray tube (CRT) display. The elements (b) to (e) are connected to the PC. The image scanner is operated to read in an original image from an original (e.g., sheet of paper), so that the PC produces original-image data representative of the original image. Next, the PC produces one or more sets of outline data representative of the outline or outlines of one or more closed areas constituting the original image. Furthermore, the PC produces embroidery data, e.g., sets of stitch-position data representative of respective stitch positions on the outline of each of the closed area or areas where satin stitches, for example, are formed to fill the inside of each closed area.
FIG. 8 shows an original image, F, constituted by five closed areas, R1 through R5, separate from one another. The hatching of the closed areas R1-R5 indicates that each hatched area R1-R5 is to be embroidered, i.e., filled with stitches. The above-identified conventional apparatus may produce embroidery data to control a sewing machine to sequentially embroider, on a work sheet, W, the closed areas R1-R5 by filling each closed area R1-R5 with satin stitches S and connecting each pair of successive closed areas R1-R2, R2-R3, R3-R4, R4-R5 with a jump stitch, J, as shown in FIG. 9. Additionally, the conventional apparatus determines the embroidery start and end positions of each closed area R1-R5 such that a jump stitch or thread J connecting the end position of one closed area R1-R4 and the start position of the next closed area R2-R5 takes a minimum length.
According to the embroidery data, the sewing machine first forms satin stitches S to fill the closed area R1 by ending at a position, a, subsequently forms a jump stitch J connecting the end position a and the start position, b, of the next closed area R2, and then forms satin stitches S to fill the closed area R2. Further, a jump stitch J is formed from the end position, c, of the closed area R2 to the start position, d, of the next closed area R3, and then satin stitches S are formed in the closed area R3.
After the five closed areas R1-R5 are filled with the satin stitches S by being connected to one another with the four jump stitches J, a worker or user removes the jump stitches or threads J by cutting the opposite or both ends of each thread J using, e.g., a pair of scissors. Finally, is obtained an embroidering product W having an embroidery F as shown in FIG. 11.
However, the embroidery F formed according to the embroidery data produced by the conventional data producing apparatus, needs a scissors-using cutting operation at each of the great number of positions a to h for removing the jump stitches or threads J. This work is very cumbersome and time-consuming for the worker or user.